Mali Fighters Destroy More Timbuktu Tombs, Commit Amputations

Al-Qaeda-linked fighters occupying Timbuktu in northern Mali have destroyed remaining mausoleums in the ancient city using pickaxes, a leader of the group says.

“Not a single mausoleum will remain in Timbuktu, Allah doesn’t like it,” Abou Dardar, head of Ansar Dine, told the AFP news agency on Sunday. “We are in the process of smashing all the hidden mausoleums in the area.”

The smashing of the mausoleum, part of what the fighters say is about defending the purity of their faith against idol worship, follows a United Nations approval of a military force to wrest back control of the conflict-ridden area.

Historians say the rebels’ campaign of destruction is pulverising a valuable part of the history of Islam in Africa.

The AFP reported that witnesses confirmed the claims, which were also corroborated by a resident who said he belonged to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), another group occupying the fabled city.

“The Islamists are currently in the process of destroying all the mausoleums in the area with pickaxes,” one witness said.

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Frank says:

And all the rest of whom for which to whensoever of partially indeterminate bio-chemical degredation. Seek the path to the sudsy yellow nozzle of their foaming nocturnal parametric digital whole-wheat inter-faith geo-thermal terpsichorean ejectamenta. -- From board tape at Zappa concert, outdoors, at Blossom Music Center, Akron, Ohio, summer 1984. This quote was in the middle of a spoken section of "The Mud Club" in which a dude walks into the club with a blue Mohawk and proceeds to "work the floor, work the wall, work the monitor system. . . ." The band was having monitor feedback problems at the Blossom concert, and there are numerous references to P.A. equipment throughout this ramble. Other than that, the quote is meaningless, I guess. But great imagery!